Category Archives: Adventures
Safari
In honor of my 200th post on this blog, I treated myself to a Safari. In the exotic land of Shreveport, LA at a remote location. My parents’ house. Enjoy.
Remember this guy? I found out he is not alone…
With all of that bling, how can a monkey look so sad?
Ordinary Boston
I am not one to let news tragedies affect me and certainly not the ridiculous media coverage that accompanies them, but the Boston Marathon bombing really jarred me. I’ve never felt such hopelessness in humanity. I cried on and off the whole day. What you are about to read is a re-post from almost a year ago about my first experience with traveling out of the south as an adult. It’s about the city of Boston as a place that holds special importance to me. It is a place where I conquered multiple fears at once, where I ejected myself from my comfort zone, and where I took risks. It is just such a stunning place, and in light of recent events, I just want to share this piece again. Thanks for reading.
The Stoop
I attempt frugality. As well, I pride myself in my research abilities (most of the time). So, when looking for a place to stay in Boston, I luckily found a steal of a crash pad. The place my friend Ellen and I stayed was The Copley House in the Back Bay area of Boston. After my friend in the area convinced me that it was in a safe area and conveniently located in the center of the attractions, I eagerly made a booking.
Instead of a full-blown generic hotel, each room they offered was an individual and unique apartment. After checking in to the main office on Newton St., we drove to our unit around the corner on a different street. Key in hand, we pulled up and grabbed our bags out of the bed of the truck. As I used my key to turn the old rim dead bolt, I felt like I was in a movie scene yet again. You know, the one where I am a successful full-time writer entering her humble city dwelling.
I almost feel like I am cheating readers by making such a lackluster claim, but the apartment we shacked up in was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I am so glad we did not opt for a cookie cutter corporate hotel. Not only would we have spent a fortune, leaving us little money for gorging Lobster and drowning ourselves in Irish car bombs, but the whole experience would have been completely different; think way less traditional character and a lot more generic plastic key card. Read the rest of this entry
Sleepless in Louisiana
I will be out of the blog arena this week for reasons which I can not disclose. Yet. So in my absence, welcome back the one, the only, Mr. Hook….
Secrets, secrets are no fun — no, actually they are.
TEN THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BECCA. Read the rest of this entry
Blogger Meet Up 2013 Update!
Jen and I came to you last week with a proposal. We didn’t ask you to put a ring on it (us?), but we did ask you to hang out with us in real life. For internet people, this is almost the equivalent of committing to marriage. Luckily, you didn’t throw up, pass out, or flat-out say no. If you did, you hid it well and composed yourself before leaving a comment. This is a good sign.
Maybe if we are all wearing the shirt, this wont happen…
So what’s next you ask?
Well, Jen and I gathered up the responses and made a list of where everyone is located. At first, I felt like I was a detective solving a murder by drawing connections on a map while smoking a lot of cigarettes in the dark. Then I just felt like I was a cyber stalker. Either way, it felt right.
There seems to be a great divide in the WordPress world. Half of you (who participated) are spread out on the West coast and the other half on the East coast. There were not too many bloggers located in the middle. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see that a few other southerners popped out from behind their fried chicken and waffles to give a thumbs up for the meet up. *waves*
Here is what we are going to ask you to do next. There are three polls below for you to cast your vote on a location that we have picked. We performed all kinds of high-tech mapping strategies, statistics, probability reports, and background checks to narrow down the choices. We assure you that the options listed are in everyone’s best interest. SO, if you are a tentative “yes” for the meet up, then cast your vote now! Just state which location you would prefer the most in the comments.
Options for West Coast:
- San Francisco Bay Area
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles/San Diego
Options for East Coast:
- Cincinnati, OH
- Boston, MA
- Altlantic City, NJ
- Charleston, WV
- Pittsburgh, PA
- NYC, NYC
- Houston, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Atlanta, GA
Related articles
- Blogger Meet Up 2013 (25tofly.com)
- Chicken ‘N Waffles on a Stick (instructables.com)
- Which Do You Prefer: Blogger Or WordPress? (renardmoreau.wordpress.com)
Blogger Meet Up 2013
I am sure y’all remember that huge (imaginary) New Year’s meet up most of us partook in, even if you “don’t remember”. Although it was almost two months ago, I think it is safe to say its memory is still more enchanting than anyone could have fathomed.
No one remembers this?!
Now, imagine if that had been real life. The sensation you just felt was the process of your mind exploding. But bare with me here.
Lately, I have noticed that a lot of mystical and cosmic encounters have been occurring among WordPress bloggers. While we were all getting classy-trashy at our party, Tracy spent New Year’s Eve with none other than Le Clown and his troops IRL. Vyvacious got to meet Sweet Mother and the fearless Jillian Levi last month. The same Jillian Levi who got to meet up with Calahan after that. I am still not over that one. Hell, even La La announced at one point that she received some free travel miles and took to Facebook to get suggestions on a destination.
What does this all mean, and why do I feel so left out? Besides the fact that I am totally left out. (I wear my tweets on my sleeve)
I began stewing. After that, I began high jacking Facebook comment threads with jealous rants. Then, I decided to stop pouting and do something about it.
I e-mailed Jen demanding that we organize a blogger meet up for 2013. I’m imagining something out of You’ve Got Mail, only you don’t have to make out with anyone at the end if you don’t want. You also won’t go out of business (if you have one). You will, however, have to know how to spell fox. That’s the secret password to get into the meet up.
Jen then pooped her pants in agreement. Thank god I had some baby wipes handy. We obviously make a great team, so we decided to join forces to make this blorgy happen. We would like to work on getting a census of where everyone is located, come up with a centralized venue that would be ideal for most of the bloggers interested, and of course pick some date(s).
BUT FIRST, we need to find out if this is something in which bloggers out there would actually participate. Are you pooing your pants in excitement like Jen, or would you rather remain loving your blog friends from afar? Much like that really rank smelling, yet extremely sweet and helpful cousin of yours. Maybe you don’t give a shit either way, but please humor us.
If you wouldn’t mind, please take a second and let us know by answering the poll questions below in a comment. Actually, you better do it or else I am going to high jack the comment section of your blog and continuously post Harlem Shake video links until the spam filter catches me. Or something.
To meet or not to meet? That is the question.
1. Would you be interested in attending a blogger meetup?
2. What is the closest metropolitan area to you?
3. If you are down, what other place(s) would you like to have a meetup?
Related articles
- How to spot a blogger at ten paces… (lipsticking.com)
- Why Every Blogger Should Blog Outside the Comfort Zone in 2013 (weblogbetter.com)
- Security Bloggers Network Voting (psilvas.wordpress.com)
LaLaBec’s NYE Bash: The Aftermath
New Years Eve turned out to be more terrifying than magical, but only to the outsider looking in. To us, we felt that our imaginary party surpassed magical. We all got pretend wasted and fake made out with one another at midnight. If it had been real, we would all still be on bed rest with mono. Yeah. And of course there was that game of musical underwears. It got weird in all the right places.
What we definitely did not look like. Except for Bill, who totally looked like that guy in the front, but instead he was chugging Mountain Dew.
Everyone who attended had their own special time at the party. None of the guests remember a lick of the evening, but luckily I had a camera hidden in that bonsai tree everyone kept trying to eat, so that we could all relive it. Hold on to your aspirin.
After La La and I linked our arms in a fancy fashion and did a get-the-party-started-shot out of some vases she found lying around, the first guests started to arrive. First was none other than Rich, Twindaddy, and Calahan who all arrived riding a tandem bicycle. They looked dashing. Especially Rich, who already had a margarita in one hand and a package of depends in the other. He thought it would be funny. It was. After all, we did instruct guests to bring a change of underwear.
Before Twindaddy could even set up the YouTube streaming videos of people doing the stanky leg, we heard a discerning clatter coming from the back yard. Or the roof. This one I am hazy on. It was David Stewart, of course. His homemade helicopter was painted in purple animal print. At first we were confused, but then Renee hopped out screaming, “Sir Mix-A-Lot is getting a run for his money tonight!”. That made more sense and was refreshing to hear.
Speaking of refreshing, as more guests started to arrive we all started coming up with drink concoctions. Emily set up a drink stand in the kitchen that had a sign reading, “Enhanced Lemonade” with a winking smiley face drawn on it. Le Clown later broke this sign in half using only his nose. He didn’t even smudge his new clown make-up.
Sarah brought plenty of tequila which me and La La hoarded all night, and Cathy and India brought some other inferior liquors. Just kidding. No liquor is inferior. And Cathy, I had no idea you could down a gin and tonic through Adam‘s beer bong like that. Impressive. Good thing JackieP was on standby with the water to hydrate us all, until she found the room with the clapper light and disappeared for the rest of the night.
We didn’t just drown ourselves in booze. There was also a feast. It had resemblance to the imaginary feast in the movie Hook.
Despite the rumors, this is not how The (actual) Hook showed up to the party. He wore his bellman’s uniform as requested, and everyone threw ones at him thinking he was a stripper.
Vyvacious brought some gourmet batman looking stuff to the table which started a chain reaction. Everyone started whipping out their treats. Not those kinds of treats. Adam is brought a cheese ball. Lori brought an edible insect that I stayed away from, because I wasn’t sure what it was. I ate Weeb’s desert instead. She got kind of mad. To top it all off, I found Lauren frying chicken in the kitchen with mmkng (hello, hello kitty underwear!). They were whispering to each other, “Be vewy vewy careful” and snickering madly.
By the way, who was naked in the pantry? I am looking at you MissFourEyes. I know Pigeon Heart was probably in there too, giving you a full body tattoo.
Suddenly, about ten till midnight, the famous bromantic couple Brother Jon and David Harding busted through the door. Brother Jon brought the ultimate party platter of bagel bites, pickles, and pizza rolls, and David had everyone fist dancing simultaneously. Naturally, but very unnaturally. He was also chanting something about giants ruling. The only one not fist dancing was Amy. She was swaying in the wind like a willow.
As the clock struck twelve, and I frantically searched for Calahan, Le Clown raised his sparkling water to which everyone fell silent. He made a toast that was too beautiful to be translated. Or, I am just rusty on my French. We all had a moment of silence for the absent Jillian and Ridicuryder who decided it would be bad for his abstinence to show up to a party with women, booze, and underwear celebrations.
Then everyone became one.
I slipped out of the kissing cluster just in time to find Calahan, who was nuzzling in the corner with Jack and humming the tune of All By Myself . I didn’t dare interrupt him.
As guest finally started making the trek home, I made sure to warn everyone not to disturb Maddie who passed out on the front yard sidewalk with Moses’s tie on. As the number of party people dwindled, La La and I took a much-needed seat on the front porch. As I lit my last cigarette, we saw Carrie and Jules stealing the tandem bicycle. They had a large bag tied to the back.
Just before they turned out of sight, I watched three identical thinking crowns fall out of the bag and skip across the asphalt. “So much for the party favors” I though, just before I gave in to sleep.
Bonus: LaLaBec Productions Out Take
Related articles
- Becca and La La’s New Year’s Eve Celebration (25tofly.com)
Thank God It's Flyday
Sometimes I look at Becca’s blog title, 25ToFly, and I start laughing.
No, you guys, I’m not laughing at her.
What I meant to say, is that Becca doesn’t know how much I relate to that wonderfully alphanumeric title of hers. She doesn’t even have the slightest idea that just a few years ago I could have written this exact snippet from her…
A Red-Headed Woman
In high school I thought I was in love with a new girl who moved into my neighborhood. I’d watch through the kitchen window, waiting for her to turn the corner at the end of my street as she headed for school. I’d rush to the front door, wait about 30 seconds, and then casually head out. I would try to think of something clever to say to impress her because she had a great sense of humor and appreciated that in others.
